


Show Me Where It Hurts

by cottonwoolsocks



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alcohol, Allison Hargreeves Deserves Better, Allison Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Ben Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Canon Relationships, Canonical Character Death, Consensual Possession, Crying, Dead Dave (Umbrella Academy), Dead Reginald Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Diego Hargreeves is Bad at Feelings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Needs A Hug, Family, Family Feels, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Ghost Ben Hargreeves, Good Sibling Allison Hargreeves, Good Sibling Ben Hargreeves, Good Sibling Diego Hargreeves, Good Sibling Klaus Hargreeves, Good Sibling Luther Hargreeves, Good Sibling Number Five | The Boy, Good Sibling Vanya Hargreeves, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Diego Hargreeves, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Klaus Hargreeves Gets A Hug, Klaus Hargreeves Has PTSD, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Klaus Hargreeves-centric, Luther Hargreeves Deserves Better, Luther Hargreeves Is Bad At Feelings, Luther Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Mentioned Claire (Umbrella Academy), Mentioned Raymond Chestnut, Minor Injuries, No Incest, Number Five | The Boy Deserves Better, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Break, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy has PTSD, Number Five | The Boy's Powers, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Past Child Abuse, Possession, Post-Season/Series 02, Post/No Sparrow Academy, Protective Klaus Hargreeves, Protective Siblings, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Sad Allison Hargreeves, Sad Klaus Hargreeves, Sad Luther Hargreeves, Sad Vanya Hargreeves, Self-Doubt, Sibling Banter, Sibling Bonding, Sleep Deprivation, Smart Klaus Hargreeves, Spoilers, Swearing, Vanya Hargreeves Deserves Better, Vanya Hargreeves Gets a Hug, Vanya Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25772752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cottonwoolsocks/pseuds/cottonwoolsocks
Summary: Diego tries to hide an injury, Vanya doubts her place, Allison misses her family, Five needs a break, Ben misses having a physical body, and Luther has a difficult night.Klaus is exceptionally skilled at noticing such things.ORSix times Klaus looks after his siblings, and one time they look after him.Klaus discovers fireworks aren’t the only thing that drag back memories of the war.
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Dave/Klaus Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves & Everyone, Klaus Hargreeves & Luther Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 50
Kudos: 554





	1. Diego

**Author's Note:**

> title and fic loosely inspired by ['Two'](https://open.spotify.com/track/62CprXvSWsKBvYu3Yba55A?si=vuMaj60SRbedHKMSaT_35g) by Sleeping at Last, every single line of which makes my heart hurt each time i listen to it with klaus in mind.

Klaus, to most people, has his head in the clouds, is ignorant to subtleties, and is perhaps even a little selfish. But those who know him well know he can be ridiculously insightful.

Someone shifts in their seat just a little more than usual or stares into the middle-distance for just a little too long at the evening meal, and Klaus is at their door that evening with a hot water bottle and a promise of cuddles. If his siblings are arguing and someone is taking it harder than the others realise, Klaus will inject himself into the conversation, directing the frustration and aggression away from them and instead towards himself to save them the discomfort. If someone joins him when he’s drinking on the roof at midnight, he’ll offer them a swig, ask what’s wrong, and listen for as long as they want to talk—then keep an eye on them for a long while after, just to make sure they don’t end up following him down his same path of substance abuse.

Maybe it’s a lifetime of tuning out ghosts that makes him so good at hiding this perceptiveness, a lifetime of ignoring the whining and wailing that will only worsen if he responds. He has many years of practice tuning them out, pretending he doesn’t hear, averting his gaze so they might leave him alone just a little sooner. Blending in, because much as Klaus takes pride in his complete and utter lack of ability to give a fuck, on more than one occasion nosy people think the strange man on the subway hearing voices is a threat, and on more than one occasion Klaus has ended up back in rehab or behind the bars of a jail cell when all he’d really been out for was a box of fries and an easy high.

But Klaus notices. He notices when his siblings snap more than usual, when they’re more feisty and on edge, no matter how they might try to pretend otherwise. He doesn’t always point it out, because he knows firsthand what it’s like to not want people to worry, so most often he just observes, watching from the corner of his eye, judging the severity of the situation through playful teasing and nudging the conversation subtly towards where he needs it to be.

And every time, the urge to help weighs him down. His family is a persistent mess of repressed emotions and damaged childhoods, and each of them is trying to carry their own world alone on their shoulders—he can see that better than most. And often, he leaves it, simply watching, because his attempts at help are brushed off or unhelpful or only a guarantee to make things worse. But sometimes—sometimes, he steps in. When they’ll let him.

Klaus is elbows deep in the early hours of the morning and the Lucky Charms box as he digs for change he has stashed away over the past few months, scattered around the house in places the rest of the household are unlikely to look: places like the boxes of cereal nobody else likes and the dusty mugs in the back of the kitchen cabinets. Any money he hides in his room only gets ‘borrowed’, and keeping any notable value on his person is an invitation to thievery when he’s drunk himself unconscious in some back alley. Plus, scattering his change over the house—beneath couch cushions, inside ornate vases, deep in the cracks and crevices of damaged walls they still haven't gotten around to patching up—makes it that much more of a challenge for him to gather it.

Not that it’s ever stopped him for long, but any incentive to get clean is better than none.

When the kitchen backdoor unlatches Klaus is immediately on alert, hopping gingerly down from the work surface and sliding a knife from the knife block as he moves to crouch behind the table, toes curling away from the cold of the ceramic kitchen tiles. This won’t be like last time, when he had been caught so disastrously off guard with hardly a second to defend himself. This time, he is ready, and he’s going to go down swinging.

A shadow enters, and the door swings closed with a deft click. Klaus’s heartbeat drums in his ears.

“It’s Diego,” says Ben at the same time as Klaus thinks it.

“Diego?” Klaus stage-whispers incredulously, setting the knife down on the table. He jumps as a knife whizzes past, slicing tangibly through the air mere centimetres from his cheekbone.

“Klaus?” Diego hisses as he recognises him, huffing and leaning a shoulder against the wall with a thud as he rolls his eyes and Klaus raises a hand to his face and pats faintly at the unscathed skin. “Holy shit, man!”

“You had that one coming,” quips Ben, but Klaus waves him off.

“Been out playing Batman?” Klaus asks, donning his usual playful exterior as he tries to convince the adrenaline fueling his heartbeat that there is no threat and dancing around the dining table on his tiptoes. His eyes flicker over the hand Diego has clasped around his torso, and the way he leans more heavily on his left foot than his right. Diego winces as Klaus starts to approach, decides he doesn’t want to deal with Klaus right now, and sets a brisk pace towards the stairwell.

“Shut up,” Diego huffs, batting away Klaus’s grabbing hands as he shuffles towards the staircase. Slashes litter his clothes, and the material clasped under his hand is faintly discoloured, darker. “What you doing up, anyway?”

“Oh, this and that,” replies Klaus, waving off Ben’s sudden exclamation as he, too, notices the blood on Diego’s shirt, unassuming against the black material. “The more pressing question is why you’re limping into the kitchen at four-something in the morning.”

“I’m not limping.”

Klaus raises both eyebrows. “Do you _need_ me to go wake Mom up?”

Diego pauses, steadying himself with a hand against the doorframe as he regards Klaus, alarm flashing momentarily behind his eyes. “No, no, I’m fine. Don’t wake her up, it’s late.”

“Then stop trying to act all macho and let your wonderful brother help you out!”

Diego rolls his eyes again, taking half a step forward but pausing as he reconsiders Klaus’s threat. The hand around his abdomen clenches tighter, lip curling in well-concealed discomfort. After a moment of stillness, he mumbles, “No offense, Klaus, but I don’t think you know how to apply a bandaid.”

“Oh, please,” Klaus retorts as he begins shepherding Diego back to the table, “I’ve picked up a thing or two about first aid in my time.” And then, more carefully, “I made a point of learning a bit, here and there, after Dave.”

Diego quietens at that, eyebrows creasing as if he doesn’t know quite what to say. “Shit, I didn’t mean—”

“I know, I know.” Klaus busies himself with making sure Diego is sitting comfortably on one of the kitchen chairs before digging around in his back pocket and tossing a forlorn, deflated fruit roll-up onto the table in front of him. “Rejuvenate yourself while I go find supplies.”

Klaus ambles from the room, ignoring Diego’s protests as he heads towards the infirmary. After hunting through the cupboards for a minute or two he finds what he needs, clutching the little red pouch to his chest and sneaking back to the kitchen. He mentally thanks Ben for not commenting on the way he had looked longingly towards where they both know the stronger medication is kept, inside Grace’s room.

Diego is still in the chair when Klaus returns and he looks up as he approaches, shoulders relaxing as he recognises his brother and subtly clicks the knife he has been thumbing back into its holster. The fruit roll-up has vanished from the tabletop, and Klaus hi-fives himself sneakily under the table. Ben seems to find the whole thing hilarious and suggests Klaus check the trash for the unopened packet before he applauds himself, but Klaus isn’t going to disappoint himself unnecessarily. Small victories, small victories.

“Took you long enough.”

“Aww, don’t worry, I’d freeze my toes against our torturously cold concrete floors any day for you, Diego!”

It turns out Diego is hiding a particularly nasty gash across his side, but he hardly winces as Klaus cleans and dresses it, fingers skilled from practice tending to his own scrapes and scratches over the years.

“You know,” says Klaus around the corner of the gauze held taut between his teeth as he pins it round Diego’s forearm, “you don’t have to sneak in every night like you’re gonna get in trouble if someone sees. It’s okay to need help with things.”

Diego laughs gently. “Is that you or the rehab speaking?”

“It’s the rehab,” says Ben from his perch on the tabletop, feet swinging back and forth.

“Diego!” Klaus scolds, holding his free hand to his chest in mock offense. “Can I not, once in a while, simply state the truths of my heart?”

“Isn’t that where most of your bullshit comes from?”

“If I wasn’t tending your wounds right now I would be punching you in the arm.”

Ben snorts. “If I had a physical body I would never stop punching you in the arm, Klaus.”

“Ah, I can feel the brotherly love from here,” Klaus shoots back, twirling a hand in the air. He softens as he finishes tying off the end of the gauze, cutting it to size. “Say, Diego, does this happen a lot?”

“What?”

“You, sneaking into the house late at night, all bruised up and nobody knowing.”

Diego fixes him with an even stare, although there is hesitation behind his eyes. “Not frequently.”

Klaus nods morosely. “And I do not frequently break into Dad’s old liquor cabinet and drink his best booze.”

Diego narrows his eyes, a smile tugging at his lips. “Oh, yeah?”

“Never.”

“Got it.” Diego gets to his feet as Klaus begins to pack away the various pins and bandages back into the bag. “I won’t go poking around in there, then.”

“And I won’t tell Mom to sleep lightly at four-something in the morning because Diego gets home late.”

Diego moves to the fridge, dislodging his knife from the wooden sideboard and brushing it free of splinters. He spins it in his fingers as he walks past Klaus, starting up the stairs but pausing just before his head moves out of view. 

“Thanks, Klaus.” 

And then he’s gone.

Klaus strokes his chin thoughtfully. “I think that went well.”

“It was painfully awkward, but at least now Diego knows where your liquor stash is. Maybe he’ll confiscate it.”

Klaus grins knowingly towards Ben, spinning the strap of the first aid kit around his finger. “He won’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are always appreciated!  
> [my tua tumblr](https://wouldyoulikeamargarita.tumblr.com/)


	2. Vanya

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanya wonders if it was better for everyone when she didn't have powers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've switched around the future chapter order a bit so it will read better when we get there, so ben's chapter is now later! this doesn't affect what is already published, but i'm mentioning it in case anyone noticed i switched around the summary order and was confused because man that's happened to me before and i still don't know if it was actually edited or if i just remembered it wrong. some things we will never know

Klaus is making his rounds about the house, chatting idly with Ben about something benign as he skips up the stairs towards their bedrooms.

He isn’t even sure his siblings are aware of his little routine, and he doubts they will ask, generally having decided it’s best to just let Klaus do what Klaus does or else be dragged into some night-long conversation or escapade. Heck, it’s possible even Ben hasn’t caught on, all too used to Klaus’s eccentric habits and tendency to act on thoughts that make sense only to him.

Every day, give or take, Klaus makes an effort to do his rounds about the Academy, sticking his head into wherever his siblings might be. They interpret it as just _Klaus being Klaus_ —always after attention, validation, seeking favours or a free taxi service—but to Klaus, it’s far more than that. Well, often it is, anyway—not that he doesn’t admit to sometimes just needing Diego to drive him around. It’s a way to check in, a way to keep an eye on his royally messed up family without coming across as too overbearing, or clingy, or concerned. It lets him make sure they’re all doing okay, without needing to ask them outright, because Lord knows they’re all emotionally constipated.

And by now, his siblings are used to it. Klaus popping his head into your room is just something Klaus does, and you can either throw a shoe at his head or listen to whatever nonsense he’s spouting this time.

That nonsense, too, is a way of checking on them—a way of judging how highly strung his siblings are, based on how long they’ll entertain him for. A way of judging if they’re ill or overtired by how quickly they can snap a response, of how characteristic that response is of each of them.

But they don’t need to know his motives. In fact, it’s probably better if they don’t.

It is on one such round that he meanders past Vanya’s room for what is not the first time that day. In fact, it is only 4pm and this is the fourth time he has wandered past, because Vanya has seemed quiet all week, quieter than usual, and Klaus can tell something is bothering her. So, he’s been making extra trips past her bedroom, or the study, or wherever she has been deciding to spend her time, to sneak a peek inside and subtly nose about. Ben makes another joke about racehorses and Klaus running laps as they approach the door, but Klaus ignores him, not wanting to alert Vanya to their presence. She has already caught them once today.

The door is closed, dark wood bathed in shadow, hidden from the ceiling light by the sharp curve of the wall. It’s shabbier than the rest of his siblings’, wood chipped and paint peeling back from the door handle, and Klaus feels a pang of regret in his chest as he remembers when Vanya had first moved into this room.

Looking back, it was just another of Reginald’s ploys to force Vanya to feel separated, to make her feel alone in the house she should be able to call home—but Klaus cannot help the pang of guilt in his chest as he remembers how he had celebrated. Vanya and Klaus’s rooms used to be side by side, but when Vanya had been relocated down the hall the dividing wall had been knocked down, giving Klaus almost double the space. He remembers cheering, finally having room to pin up his posters and store all the fun trinkets he’d amassed over the years. And Vanya had moved down the hall, further from her siblings, further from fitting in and into a room with the door out of view and the lights flickering dimmer as they failed to reach that far.

And Klaus knows it isn’t _really_ his fault, that it was just another brick in the carefully constructed prison of their childhood, and he knows that he isn’t the only one who feels shame at the way they treated Vanya back then. But the guilt still hangs over him whenever his eye catches the crumbling line on his bedroom ceiling where the wall used to be, or hears violin echoing from far down the hallway instead of right through the wall.

As he and Ben approach the closed door, they hear shuffling from inside, the shifting of material and unzipping of bags.

They share a look.

Klaus knocks.

“Vanya?”

The shuffling pauses, and the atmosphere teeters like the moment before a drinking bird ducks its head to the water.

Footsteps sound, and the door whines as it is pulled inwards. Vanya is looking up at him with tired eyes, violin and bow balanced between the fingers of one hand and a question hanging in the air.

“Klaus?”

“Hey, Vanny!” He peers over her head, taking in the backpack open on the bed and the various scattered bundles of clothing and memoirs. Her shelves look barer, and the duvet is neatly tucked over the mattress like it hasn’t been slept in. “You going somewhere?”

Vanya steps back into her room, leaving the door open as she sets the violin and bow into the case lying open on the bed, flicking the latches closed. Klaus tags behind, swinging the door mostly shut before taking stance against the wall, hands hanging from his pockets as Ben hovers awkwardly by the doorway.

“Yeah, I uh— Thought it was probably best if I leave.”

“Leave?” echoes Klaus curiously, moving over to stand beside his sister as she pulls a half-filled suitcase out from under the bed frame and begins to throw in clothes. There are various trinkets scattered around, paintings he recognises propped up against the pillows, and a pile of books beside the suitcase, the top one of which has the outline of a human brain on it, bold black against the white cover. “Ooh, where are we going?”

She pauses, eyeing him cautiously. “Not ‘we’, Klaus. Just me. I think— I think maybe you’re all right. About me, I mean. I’m too dangerous to have around here, I only make things worse.”

Klaus touches her shoulder gently, turning her to face him and holding her upper arms firmly when she peers up in confusion. “Hey, hey, hey—granted, you might’ve destroyed the moon and caused the end of the world as we know it a couple times, but haven’t we all?”

She shakes him off, eyes darting covertly towards Klaus as she snatches up the book with the brain on the cover, tucking it hurriedly beneath the clothes in the suitcase and continuing to try and jam shirts in on top with just a touch less fervour than before. “I am a risk to you all the longer I stay here.”

Klaus sighs gently. “So, where else are you gonna go? Go blow up a different moon, somewhere else?”

Her hands pause halfway through zipping the suitcase closed, fingers shaking as she lifts it upright and snaps, “Well, that’s all I’m good for so far.”

Ben, who has been watching in silence up until this point, steps forward. His eyes are wide, panicked, filled with a desperation he can’t act on as he watches Vanya. “Don’t go, we need you.” His eyes glance briefly towards Klaus, begging him to translate, willing him to tell Vanya to stay.

“Ben says—” Klaus’s eyes flick towards Vanya, back to Ben, to Vanya again, who has frozen at their deceased brother’s name. “Ben says not to go—he says we need you here.” Vanya’s knuckles turn white around the handle of the suitcase as Klaus adds quietly, “He’s right.”

Vanya chews on her lip as her eyes close, shoulders turning inwards as the lamp on the side table begins to rattle. Klaus takes the initiative, stepping towards her and placing his hands tentatively on her shoulders.

She flinches away, stepping back and half-tripping as her knees fold and she sits hard on the bed.

“I just—” 

Her shoulders rise and fall as she takes a deep breath and holds it, letting it out just as slowly as the shaking of the nightstand calms. Klaus lowers his hands tentatively, wanting to help, feeling guilty he can’t just tell her to let out her anger and pain and dejection as she so rightfully deserves without the risk of another apocalypse. He settles for perching on the duvet beside her, eyes dotting over her face as he tries to gauge just how badly he and his siblings had ignored Vanya this time. It was a running streak they desperately needed to break, and he was already mentally chastising himself for not checking in with her sooner.

“Everything I do hurts people. Maybe I should—” she shakes her head, shoulders slumping in defeat, “—maybe I should go back on my meds. Nobody got hurt, then. Maybe… What if Dad was right, after all?”

Ben takes a step forward, face conflicted. His hands are jammed as far into his pockets as they will go, fists shaking as he grasps the material tightly, blinking fast. The beginnings of a sentence catch in the back of his throat but he swallows the words down, eyes despairing as he turns to Klaus, begging him to do something, anything. And then he shakes his head and sinks down beside the wall, hood pulled up as he bites down on his knuckles and heaves a deep sigh.

Klaus drums his fingers against his knee and ponders. There are so many things he could say right now—truths, half-truths, and lies alike—but the best thing he can do right now is tell Vanya what she needs to hear.

“Dad was a stubborn bastard who probably mistook the book on parenting for the book on”—he twirls his hand loosely in the air as he tries to think of words intense enough to do justice to the bundle of eccentricities that was Reginald—“how to be a huge asshole.” A smile ghosts across Vanya’s face and Klaus claps his hands together, eager to keep this positive flow going as he rocks back on the bed to sit more comfortably. “And he screwed us all up, but personally my vote’s on being screwed up together rather than apart, whaddaya say?”

And he adds some jazz hands for good measure.

Vanya’s hands are clasped together, clenching and unclenching in a nervous habit, an attempt to steer the anxious energy away from her emotions and into something physical. She smiles. “And I thought I was the author here.”

“I don’t think I have enough commitment for my own, personal novel, but maybe Ben will ghostwrite my memoirs for me.”

Vanya snorts, covering her mouth quickly. “ _Klaus!_ ”

Ben shakes his head, underlying concern for Vanya overshadowed by the amused grin on his face. “ ‘Ghostwrite’? Really?”

Klaus bows deeply, the best he can while sitting down. “Thank you, thank you, I’m here all week!”

Vanya laughs hoarsely, hurriedly dashing at her eyes with the heel of her palm. “You’re an idiot, Klaus.”

Klaus pulls her into his side, holding tighter when she doesn’t move away.

“An idiot full of love!”

She beats a fist down against his thigh, too gently to do any damage as she lets her shoulders and mind relax. “That too, then.”

And Klaus squeezes tighter, presses a messy kiss into her hair, and tries to ignore the fish hooks tugging on his heart as he wishes not for the first time that he had the ability to take away his sister’s pain, give it to himself instead.

Ben watches. Relieved. Regretful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and thanks for all the lovely comments last chapter! every single one of them was greatly appreciated, and i loved hearing all of your thoughts!  
> [this is a vortex to my tumblr where i yell into the void about these umbrella kids sometimes](https://wouldyoulikeamargarita.tumblr.com/)


End file.
